LIFE IN THE WORLD'S BEST PRISON.

O.K. You broke the law.You are going to prison. Saudi Arabia is the place to be.

The Crown Prince has gone on a purge of high profile offenders ( or suspected offenders) and has turned one of the ritziest of the nation's hotels into the county jail.

Here are several hundred top business men, politicians, goat herders turned millionaires and oil sheiks all jostled together in five- star-luxury, awaiting trial. They are huddled with their lawyers while they are fed gourmet meals, given access to all sorts of entertainment and, at any time, can retire to their cells which are high quality suites.

This is a different sort of world folks. When I stopped off in the Gulf for an overnight stay, I found the place reeking with money. Late model cars, high rise towers, restaurants that would put the best eateries in America in the shade.

Here is an area where a hundred years ago there were Bedouin Arabs grazing their goats on scrub land.

Ah, but under all that sand was black gold: the stuff that a petrol hungry world needed to fuel their economy and power their war machines.

And so in 2017,as we start our engines and drive to work, spare a thought for the sheiks in prison, enjoying their gourmet meals and tipping their servants with your petro-dollars.

Jubilate.

Ian

MUGABE: GOING, GOING,GOING ... GONE!

Like a scene from an old Western Movie, Robert Mugabe, hit from all side by bullets still staggers around occasionally firing off a round from his own pistol. Those characters never seemed to die, did they?

But, this time the old fox has run out of tricks and time: his 37 year old reign is over (we think).

Still couching the situation in diplomatic language, a newspaper declared that the "Thirty seven year old ERROR has finally come to an end"

Error indeed! This megalomaniac in his tenure as tribal chief over Zimbabwe saw white farmers stripped illegally of their lands and holdings, superintended the raping of the nation's wealth, the  destruction of its economy, the impoverishing of its people and the aggrandizement of his family and their cronies.

Some error. What happened in Zimbabwe was a modern social disaster that took the Pearl of Africa out of the hands of Britain's colonial rule and made it the world's number one banana republic.

I have in my wallet a $100,000,000 bill issued by the bank of Zimbabwe. It was given me by one of my friends who was a missionary in Harare. It wouldn't even buy a loaf of bread.

Pray for this nation for it is home to many wonderful pastors and their congregations. The danger is that, as Mugabe hobbles back to his village in the bush, Mnangagwa, his vice president will continue where he left off and push his nation even further into the stone age.

Jubilate.

Ian